Who is someone who has significantly impacted your life?
I bet you can identify a handful of people who came along at just the right time and helped you make the right choice or kept you from a wrong one.
Maybe you were trying to decide on which college to attend or you were struggling in your marriage. Maybe it was a career crisis or a parenting challenge. Then all of a sudden you met someone who helped you in a pivotal moment. They gave you a brilliant insight or a nugget of wisdom that changed everything.
Because they came along at just the right time with just the right information it felt like a divinely appointed connection.
It’s hard to imagine how things would have turned out had they not come into your life when they did.
What if there was a way to make those game-changing relationships happen more frequently?
I think there is because those connections weren’t a result of luck or chance. You were doing something that you probably weren’t even aware of that resulted in this perfectly timed connection.
What was it?
You put yourself in environments that were conducive for game-changing relationships.
The more that I’ve put myself in the right environments the “luckier” I’ve become with friends, mentors, and guides. You never know which specific environment will produce those divine appointments, but you can always tell the type of environments that are conducive for it.
What’s the right type of environments? It’s almost always the environments where people are gathering to learn and grow whether it’s church, a small group, a conference, a cohort, a graduate class, or a coaching network. I’ve had more life-shaping relationships develop in those environments than any other.
The scary thing is how many times I almost didn’t go. It was too expensive, I didn’t have the time, or I was tired, but I remembered a truth I was taught years ago that if you put yourself in environments that were conducive to growth, game-changing relationships would happen.
Afterwards I was always glad I made the effort. In some environments I made a life long friend and in others I met someone who gave me one nugget of wisdom that changed everything.
The environment isn’t the point, it’s what the environment is conducive to that makes the difference.
In my front lawn the goal isn’t to have good fertile dirt and lots of water. The goal is to have healthy green grass. The environment (fertile dirt, sun, & water) is the only thing that is conducive to making my goal (green grass) a reality.
The environment of a class or a gathering of a network was fine, but that one conversation with that one person was worth all of the effort and energy it took to be there.
If you are looking for the best advice and the possibility of a life-long friend you aren’t going to find it in front of a tv.
You have to plant yourself in good ground…The type of ground that’s conducive to growth. So go to church…regularly. Join a small group…it’s where other growth-minded people are. Join a serving team…it’s where all of the outward focused people are. Go to the seminar, conference, network meeting, or mission’s trip. But don’t just go to attend something…put yourself out there and talk to others. Ask questions about what they are doing and what’s working. You don’t learn anything talking about yourself.
You never know whether your reward will be a game-changing insight or the beginnings of a life-long friend. But either way you leave with more than you had and you become more of who you are supposed to be.
Never miss an opportunity to be in the type of environments that are conducive to growth. If you regularly put yourself in those types of environments you’ll find that more and more game-changing relationships happen.
And who knows how your life will look different because of them.
